That’s Debatable

I believe that it was important to keep GM from failing precipitously and completely because of the extremely high number of job losses that would have immediately occurred if it had failed.

This would have pushed the economy further and much deeper into recession. However, I disagree with almost everything else the Obama administration has done with the company since.

Sixty billion dollars is far too much taxpayer investment in this company and taxpayers are highly unlikely to get their investment back.

The way that the administration has dictated winners and losers in this bankruptcy is an astounding abuse of presidential power.

Bondholders, dealers and stockholders were wiped out or forced to take huge losses, meanwhile the United Auto Workers union was able to take a smaller loss even though they have less security and were a contributing factor to the failure of GM.

Furthermore, GM is now a subsidiary of the federal government and is run by the government and the union.

This is not, and has never been, a prescription for future success. What will likely happen with GM in the future is what should be happening to it now.

This future will likely consist of liquidation and the selling off of component parts (brands like Cadillac and Chevrolet) to new owners who understand the car business and can make them work without the baggage of the past or the control and politics of the government.

Under this scenario we could respect contracts (which the administration is not doing) and put in significantly less taxpayer money.

I fear this is mirroring the folly of British Leyland, which was taken over by the British government and its unions during the 1970s.

The company failed and the brands were sold off. We still have Jaguars, Rovers, Mini Coopers, Aston Martins and the like, but they are viable again because they are not being run by a government/union entity.

Moreover, I am sorry to say, it doesn’t end there. This discussion hasn’t even begun to account for the huge conflict of interest the UAW now has because it owns part of GM and Chrysler but still represents the workers at Ford.

Rep. John Campbell

R-Newport Beach

GM should have been left alone to fail on its own rather than dragging millions of taxpayers along with them.

Putting taxpayers at risk for the incompetence of GM executives is not good policy.

If GM is such an inefficient entity that it can’t make a profit because it’s too big, it should be permitted to fail. But it’s not too big to fail because profitable portions of the company can survive.

Allowing the government to intervene by taking money out of the pockets of millions of Americans to subsidize bad business decisions is the wrong strategy.

Rep. Dana Rohrabacher